Sunday, March 6, 2011

I am so excited ... tomorrow morning's my Monday-with-Jane art class (it's not really called that, but I call it that; ok, so it's really called "Mixed Media with Paper & Cloth with Jane LaFazio", and it's offered by The La Jolla Athanaeum).

That's what we're doing tomorrow in class! Making our own resin papers :-).

As the pot roast is finishing off in the oven with the potatoes & carrots, I'm sitting here selecting images to print (inkjet), and ferreting out cool papers I'd like to try as resin paper. I'm even going to take some of the monoprint papers we did last week in case that might work ... I wonder if the color would bleed? We'll see.

Okay, so you want a sneak peak at one of the images I want to make into resin paper? Here it is:

﻿

it's a magpie, of course !!!

﻿ All that, and a post coming on the beautiful day that Ann and I spent at the home of Jenny Doh (Saturday), taking a class from Lisa Engelbrecht - I'm still grinning !!! My big idea is that I can take some of the bits of resin paper that I make tomorrow and use a little of that when I put together my LE-style art quilt with the blocks I started yesterday. :-)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

... today was a very fine day. My friend Ann Deakers and I went up to the home of Jenny Doh, for an all-day workshop with the oh-so-talented and very generous Mark Maker / CalligrapherExtraordinaire - Lisa Engelbrecht.http://www.lisaengelbrecht.com/fr_home.cfm

And the beauty of taking a workshop through Jenny's CrescendoH is that Jenny blogs about it, complete with a big collection of photographs, so fast! One can just include a link to her post, and voila! Instant blog post for me :-).

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Just posted about this over on my other blog, www.DH2travelers.blogspot.com -- visit there for ALL the photos and further details ... just hurry, 'cause you don't want to miss the chance to enter to win this GORGEOUS bag ...

Friday, February 25, 2011

I still have some whiplash-like pains from whipping my head around at all the eye-candy. So many beautiful, creative, wonderful new crafting products on their way to a retailer near you. It's going to be a wild, wonderful year for mixed-media artists and scrapbookers.Had some fun with Make 'n Takes with my friend Kat. Here's a pic of us enjoying ourselves at the Ranger booth:

Oh, and a shot of the incomparable Tim Holtz doing a demo. Wow. Up close & personal. Well, not so "personal", but you know what I mean. I hope.

Saw Claudine Hellmuth demo'ing some of her new items - she's got quite a line of stamps and a stamp "rocker" coming out -- it was pretty cool seeing her in person, finally.

One of my favorite demo's, though, was at the Faber-Castell booth. They've got the juiciest, most luscious line coming out that you can use like ink or paint on rubber stamps {or freehand} -- including a great little product that looks like it's in a fat lipstick tube called Gelatos --

WOW. You're going to love what you can do with all these new Faber Castell products. You can work with them like crazy, they're so user-friendly.

It's seriously delicious stuff.

{So now I want to design a half-day workshop around these products, I'm telling you. The rest of the day can be spent on ... art journaling? lettering? something fun and freestyle. Would you come to play?!}

Now I sit here wishing I'd had my camera out the entire time, but I just didn't. Kat and I were too busy trying them all out. {hence the links and images 'borrowed' from the manufacturers' sites.}

NOTE:due to e-blogger technical difficulties, the way I composed this post - with the F-C images IN this general area, isn't showing up. You MIGHT find the images at the bottom of the post - who knows? grrrrrrrrrrrr.

And there's so much more ...

I just received the e-mail yesterday: "Mix & Match now in Stores" !!!

Find them close to you and give them all a try. They're smooth, they're creamy, and they're user friendly {trust me, I'm the perfect human guinea pig for testing something's 'user-friendliness' factor}.

Kat and I saw some great artists demo'ing at CHA, including Donna Downey and Brenda Pinnick. They were both at the Faber-Castell booth, and it was Brenda that 'coached' us through the new Mix & Match line. Here's a photo of all that {Brenda should've given me a look at the pic & taken another - LOL}:﻿

So CHA was incredible, and one of the very best bits for me was discovering the work - and the person of - Dyan Reaveley. As we walked past the {ginormous} Ranger booth(s), Kat and I found Dyan.

﻿﻿

Dyan Reaveley ~ Art From the Heart

﻿﻿ Her art {read:visual} journals are amazing. She had a huge old ledger book that she'd done incredible backgrounds in, and her lettering, her images on top of those backgrounds, her entire STYLE - was like a magnet. She and her work pulled us back for 2 more visits before we left CHA.

I'm one of those timid artist types that sees a vintage ledger book and says "oh, how can / should I dare to color and gel medium and ink over ALL THAT OLD HANDWRITING?".

So I asked her. Her answer was nothing short of genius: "Why not 'art' over it all? Otherwise, it's going to sit on a shelf or on a table and nobody's ever going to pick it up again - they might glance at it, say 'oh, cool', and then - what? If it's an art journal, if it's re-purposed into ART, it's going to have a whole new life." OKAY, so she didn't say all that. What she basically said was the first part - the "why not?" part. And something like "if I don't art on the pages, then it's just an old ledger book that nobody's going to care about." She also had her father's old mathematics book from his school days. With his pencil scribbles in it and all. She'd "arted" in that, too. THAT is when I asked the big question. And THAT is when she gave me the big answer.

Yeah, I'm a Dyan Fan. Oh, and her biz card has the best quote on it:

"Always Be Kind, For Everyone Is Fighting a Hard Battle".

Her concise response to my question is what just opened up for me - my eyes and my heart - to REALLY USING all the vintage bits I've collected. And writing it into the paragraph above {paraphrasing, really, what she said} is when I first put into words - all that I got from Dyan's simple answer.

Thank you, Dyan Reaveley - you rock the art world. Oh, and did I mention that she's from the UK, and she has the most wonderful accent, and she has a studio / shop of her own, and her Ranger products are fabulous, and that someday, I am going to take a workshop - OVER THERE. In her studio. :-)

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

... I just added a link on my sidebar about raising a puppy for an incredible organization, one that changes the lives of people with disabilities every single day: CANINE COMPANIONS FOR INDEPENDENCE.

Their mission? "CCI is a non-profit organization that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly trained assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships."

I know, this blog is about ART. But CCI has been such a big part of my life and my heart for 20 years now, and I just had to share it with you, my fellow artists. Not only do I continue to volunteer for CCI, but I have worked for them not once, but twice - for a total of 5 years. {during my last stint as an employee at CCI, our director once referred to me as a 'retread' !! hey, I've been called worse ...}

Isn't what we do, in the end, all about community anyway?

Check out little YARROW and her mama right here; and for more information on CCI, find Yarrow on my sidebar and click to link right to CCI's website. My dear friend Linda will be co-raising this beautiful pup for CCI with co-raiser Vickie. I can't wait to meet their new darling!

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of posting on this blog about such an incredible program.

Besides bidding on and winning a great Traci package to benefit CHARITY WINGS last week, I've also signed up for a workshop with Joanne Sharpe {Oh My Word! Artful Lettering Inspiration Journals) at CREATE in May, as well as {Doodle Soup} with Dawn Sokol at the same event.

So now, in my "learn to letter, Davi" arsenal for 2011, I have the talented & creative:

Traci BautistaDawn SokolJoanne Sharpe

and if I am very very lucky, a day with

Lisa Engelbrecht in May (details to follow)

I think if I saturate myself with LETTERING workshops, prompts, practice, and play for the first half of 2011, I can focus the rest of the year on ... all the other mixed media art that I already love and appreciate.

Anyone who knows me and my passion for mixed media knows this about me: I am attracted to many many forms of art, particularly within the realm of mixed media, and so I collect books, how-to videos, online workshops, and in-person classes with ALL MY FAVORITE ARTISTS / ART TEACHERS that I can get to.

I'll post later my reminiscing of just this morning, standing at the kitchen window, of all the great classes I've taken since January 2009, and the amazing people I have met in those classes, and the generous instructors who have encouraged us all to -- follow our art hearts.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

... to work with the lovely Dyan Reaveley. you can visit her site right here, and I think you might become as enchanted with her style as I have:wwww. dyan-reaveley.blogspot.com or herewww.afth.co.uk (Art from the Heart)

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About Me

I love art, in many forms. Painting, photography, collage work, scrapbooking and card making, quilting, and especially mixed media works. CREATIVITY is a gift, not to be wasted. I have a penchant for lovely things, and I collect them for my "nest", hoping to use them some day in an art project. Until then, I just love to ... bask in their loveliness.